What is the name of the actor who played Larry on Leave to Beaver?
Leave It toBeaver is an American television sitcom broadcast between 1957 and 1963 about an inquisitive and often nave boy, Theodore "The Beaver" Cleaver, and his adventures at home, school and around his suburban neighborhood.The show starred Barbara and Hugh as June and Ward Cleaver.The Cleavers epitomize the idealized suburban family of the mid-20th century, which has made the show an icon in the United States.[2]
The show was created by two writers.The show's characters, plots, and dialogue were inspiration for the veterans of radio and early television.One of the first sitcoms written from a child's point of view was Leave It to Beaver.Like several television dramas and sitcoms of the late 1950s and early 1960s (Lassie and My Three Sons), Leave It to Beaver is a glimpse of middle-class American boyhood.In a typical episode,Beaver gets into some sort of boyish scrape, then faces his parents for correction.The series often showed the parents debating their approach to child rearing, and some episodes were built around parental gaffes.
The show ran for six full seasons.On October 4, 1957, the series was aired on CBS.It stayed at ABC until completing its run on June 20, 1963.The show was shot with a single camera on black-and-white film.George Gobel's Gomalco Production and Kayro Production were involved in the production of the show.The show was broadcasted.
The end of the show was due to the fact that it had reached its natural conclusion: In the final show, Beaver is about to graduate grade school into high school, but Wally is going to college.
Variety compared the character of Beaver to Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer.Board games, novels, and comic books were released during the show's first run.The show has enjoyed a renaissance in popularity since the 1970s through off-network syndication, a reunion telemovie, and a sequel series.The movie based on the original series was panned by reviewers.TV Land celebrated its 50th anniversary with a marathon.The show didn't break into the top 30 or win any awards, but it did make Time magazine's list of "All-Time 100 TV Shows".[5]
A TV show about childhood and family life featuring a fictional suburban couple and their children was developed in 1957 by radio, film and television writers.Father Knows Best and other sitcoms and domestic comedies of the era would not focus on the parents, but on their children, with the series being told from the kids' point of view.It's a Small World was one of the titles that worked on the show."It's a Small World" was the title of the pilot that aired on April 23, 1957.[4]
The stars of the pilot were Adams and Sullivan.As production of the series neared, they were replaced.The series left CBS on October 4, 1957, with the third episode being "Beaver Gets 'Spelled".The premiere of "Captain Jack" had a toilet tank that didn't pass the censor's office in time, but it aired the week after."Captain Jack" is the first American TV show to display a toilet tank.It was ranked number 42 in TV Guide's 100 greatest episodes of all time.[9]
During the conception of the show, a potential sponsor was counseled against the title, "Wally and the Beaver", because viewers would think it was a nature program.General Electric's logo was visible on all kitchen appliances, and Chrysler Corporation sponsored the later seasons, with Ward Cleaver often coming home from work in Season 3.He drove a 1957 Ford in the first two seasons.[4]
The show was one of the most expensive to produce at the time, with episodes costing between $30,000 and $40,000 each.Many outdoor scenes contributed to high production costs.The most expensive single episode of the show was "In the Soup", in which Beaver gets stuck in an advertising billboard with a gigantic make-believe cup of soup, curious as to how "steam" came from the cup.Two billboards were built for the show, one on the back lot and the other inside the studio.[4]
Casting directors interviewed hundreds of child actors for the role of Beaver, but kept calling back Jerry Mathers, an eight-year-old with acting experience.At one of the casting calls, Mathers wore his Cub Scout uniform and said he was eager to leave for his den meeting.Mathers was cast in the title role because of his candor.Barbara Billingsley, an actress with experience in several B movies and one failed television series, was hired to play June.A friend of Tony's accompanied him to the studio to try out for a role in Johnny Wildlife and he was hired.Several adult candidates tried out for the role of Ward, but they were turned down because the actor who worked with Mathers in a religious film was also an actor.[3]
Bob and Joe met in New York City while working for the J. Walter Thompson Agency.When Amos 'n' Andy moved to CBS television in 1950, the men continued to write the well-received show after moving to Hollywood.After becoming executive producers, the men began accepting scripts from other writers and began refining them.[4]
The source material and inspiration for the show's dialogue and plot lines came from the father and son of the two children.Eddie Haskell and Larry Mondello were based on friends of the Connelly boys, while Ricky was the model for Beaver and his son, Jay.The boys were often taken on outings while carrying a notebook to record their conversations.[4]
Other writers who contributed to the show were Bill Manhoff, Mel Diamond, Dale and Katherine Eunson, Ben Gershman, Bob Ross, Alan Manings, and Fran van Hartesvelt."If we hire a writer, we tell him not to make up situations, but to look into his own background."It's not a comedy where you have to create a situation.Our focus is on the story line.[3]
They worked to create funny characters in simple situations.In the lives of their children, the two adapted real-life situations.Bobby Mosher was forced to wear a stocking cap in a school play because he gave himself a ragged haircut.Fourteen-year-old Jay Connelly's preening habits led to his frequent hair combing.Ricky's habit of dropping the initial syllables of words was incorporated into the character.[3]
If a line got too much of a laugh, they would take it out.They did not want a big laugh.[14]
Eddie Haskell and Larry Mondello were created by Norman Tokar, a director with a talent for working with children, who was hired to direct most of the episodes for the first three years.Other directors who had directed child actresses were Gene Reynolds and Hugh Beaumont.Most of the episodes were directed by Norman Abbott.
The first two seasons of Leave It to Beaver were filmed at Republic Studios in Los Angeles.Production moved to Universal Studios for the final four seasons.The studio back lots were used to film the exteriors of the Cleaver houses.Stock footage can be used to establish shots.
The script for an upcoming episode would be delivered to the cast late in the week, with a read-through the following Monday, awkward lines or other problems being noted for rewrites.The camera and lighting crew practiced the script in its entirety on Tuesday.The scenes would be filmed with a single camera over the next three days.
To accommodate the large number of child actors who were allowed to work only four hours a day, filming was limited to one episode per week.Adult actors had to wait until after 5:00 pm to film scenes with children.[3]
Between 1957 and 1959 William A. Sickner produced 37 episodes for the series.Fred Mandl, Ray Flin, and Ray Rennahan were cinematographers for less than five episodes each.
In the first season, each episode opens with a short clip from the episode and a voice-over introduction by the host.The main title and credits of the show introduce the four main stars.Midway through the first season, the voice-over introduction was discarded in favor of a brief scene from the episode at hand, and at the end of the season the preview was completely discarded, moving immediately to the title and credits.Significant crew are listed in an extension of the opening credits after a commercial break in seasons five and six.
Each season's opening credits were filmed individually.In season one, a cartoon-like drawing of a freshly laid concrete sidewalk was displayed with the show title and stars' names scratched into its surface, while in the final season, the Cleavers left the house through the front door carrying picnic items.The first two were introduced in the opening sequence.Jerry Mathers was introduced last, with a voice-over line.[15]
As the credits rolled, the closing sequence featured a simple dark background.In the second season, the kids walk home from school with their books and enter the house through the front door.The Pine Street house is seen in the third through fifth seasons.Beaver limps along the curbstone with a baseball glove in his hand.In the last season, when the two are walking home, Beaver pushes Wally into the street and they start chasing each other around a tree.[18]
"The Toy Parade", the show's bouncy theme music, is accompanied by an orchestral rendition of it.The tune was whistled by a male chorus over an orchestral accompaniment for the closing credits and the production credits after the opening sequence.Pete Rugolo gave a jazz-like arrangement to the song for the final season.An instrumental arrangement was used for the show's entire run.The subdued musical arrangement was used as background music for tender and sentimental scenes.Some phrases from well-known musical compositions, such as "Funeral March" and "La Marseillaise", the French national anthem, were quoted occasionally.
"wall-to-wall" music is a term used for productions that use musical "tag" pieces between scenes.The theme was written for the show, but the music was not.The theme matured and the usual background music did not.The library of pre recorded music that is still prevalent today is the equivalent of this.The CBS Television Orchestra is believed to have created this music, which is reminiscent of the early 1950s.Multiple shows used many of the musical cues, including Lassie, The Virginian, and Wagon Train.
The production of Leave It to Beaver takes place in the late 1950s and early 1960s.There are very few references to contemporary news issues.Communism is mentioned in an episode.The launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik is mentioned in several episodes, as is the rapidly expanding missile defense sector in the 1962 episode "Stocks and Bonds".Eddie makes an allusion to Clay.In Gilbert's first appearance, he said he was training for the Olympics.
Contemporary cultural references are not overwhelming.In the last season, "The Twist", a popular song and dance craze of the early 1960s, was acknowledged by the show.Chubby Checker is mentioned in the episode's fictional "Chubby Chadwick" and his fictional hit tune, "Surf Board Twist".A group of people perform a version of The Twist at a party.In "Teacher's Daughter", Eisenhower, Nikita Khrushchev, and Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. are all mentioned, as well as the 1960 Kirk Douglas vehicle Spartacus.Rock Hudson, Tuesday Weld, Cary Grant, Sal Mineo, Frank Sinatra, Edd Byrnes, Tony Curtis, Sonny Liston, Cassius Clay, Bob Cousy, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Jack Paar, John Glenn, Bennett Cerf are some of the contemporary celebritiesThe 1962 episode titled "Long Distance Call" features Don Drysdale as himself.Gilbert compares the misunderstanding with "a Rod Serling Twilight Zone" when it happens that the show is being recorded to air the next day.June and Ward inspect the gift they have forBeaver's graduation and read the inscription, "Class of '63", in the 1963.
Leave It to Beaver is set in a fictional community.The Cleaver home is the main setting.The Cleavers live in two houses.Prior to the start of the series, they lived in another house.After the production moved to Universal, the faade of the original house at Republic Studios became unavailable for filming.The house stood on the back lot.The addresses of the first and second houses are 485 Mapleton and 211 Pine Street.
Surrounded by a picket fence, the Mapleton Drive house is two stories with a first floor kitchen, dining room, living room and adjoining patio, and at least three bedrooms on the second floor.There is a diagonal door in the kitchen that leads to the cellar.A kitchen door opens onto a small side yard, the driveway, and a single-car garage, which is a frequent setting for get-togethers between the boys and their father.There are 25 and 27 items.
The Cleavers discuss moving towards the end of the second season.Ward tells the boys that the Mapleton Drive house has been sold.The Cleavers are settled in their new home in the season three opener.No episode features the actual move.
There are at least three bedrooms on the second floor of the Pine Street house.There are no furnishings from the Mapleton Drive house in the new house.The reproduction of Gainsborough's The Blue Boy hangs in the front entry above the graceful bergres.A chinoiserie print covers a wing chair in the living room.
During the final episode of the Mapleton Drive house, the boys announce they are excited for the move as the new house will allow them their own separate bedrooms.The brothers still share the same bedroom in subsequent episodes.Even though a portable TV is present by late 1962, the arrangement of the furniture is the same.
After moving to Pine Street, the boys continue to attend the same schools and hang out with their friends.The Pine Street house is in the vicinity of the Mapleton Drive house, and in one episode,Beaver and Larry take a small tree to the Pine street house in a wagon.
There is a den near the main entry in the Pine Street house.The Pine Street house's garage is less used as a setting for men to get together than the Mapleton Drive garage was.For the first time in the Pine Street house, June and Ward's bedroom is seen.There is a portable TV in the room and they have their own bath.The Cleavers have a phone number.
The Pine Street faade was used extensively in The Desperate Hours, which was filmed in 1955.
The Pine Street house was used for Marcus Welby, M.D. in 1969.The house can still be seen at Universal Studios, even though the original faade was replaced in 1988 for The 'Burbs.The faade of the movie was replaced again.The house and the street it sits on were used as the main exterior set for Desperate Housewives, as well as for the Pearson family house on The Bill Engvall Show and for a time as Victoria Newman Abbott.
Leave It to Beaver is a light comedy drama with an underlying theme that proper behavior brings rewards while improper behavior results in undesirable consequences.The viewer learns that skipping school or faking an illness in order to be the recipient of "loot" from parents and schoolmates are wrong and invite discussion and lessons-learned.The adult viewer is interested in learning tips for teaching children correct behavior and how to handle common childhood problems.Children should not be expected to act like adults and view the world from a different perspective.The writers wanted parents to be moral role models.[35]
A typical episode usually follows a simple formula, with the main characters getting into a situation, trying to get out, and then facing their parents for a lecture about the event.The fables with Ward and June allow the boys to discover their moral meanings and apply them to their lives.When offenses are serious, punishments such as being grounded can be dealt with.June and Ward debated the best approach to the situation during the time period.The formula is reversed in other episodes, with Ward or June having to figure out how to make up for a parenting mistake.
The later seasons give more scope to Wally's high school life, dating, and part-time work than the earlier seasons.The acquisition of a driver's license and a car is the subject of several episodes.June and Ward are depicted from one episode to the next as an untroubled, happily married couple.
Education, occupation, marriage, and family are required for a happy and productive life.[35]
They both attend public schools and are encouraged to attend college to prepare for their futures.Ward and June both attended prep school and college, and their sons are expected to do the same.Both boys remain at home and attend their high school with their friends.School and homework can be a challenge.In "Beaver's Secret Life", the boy decides to become a writer because he doesn't have to go to school or know anything.Beaver's teachers and parents encourage him to value education and the school experience, while helping him navigate stumbles along the way.
College and a future are both important to the happy life.The successful, college-educated, middle-class professional is represented by Ward.June, the competent and happy homemaker, had a college degree and came from an upper-class background.June and Ward are from a middle-class background and value economic mobility.When June sees the importance of befriending the garbage collector's children, she initially expresses her displeasure.[41]
According to the social mores represented in the show, a happy marriage is the cornerstone of successful middle-class family life, and June and Ward represent the warm, happily married, co-parenting successfulmiddle class couple.Larry Mondello's father is frequently out of town on business, and his mother struggles single-handedly to raise her children, sometimes depending on Ward to help discipline Larry.Divorce is shown to have negative effects on children and family life in one episode.
One of the pillars of traditional Americana is religion, which is lightly touched upon in the series.In some episodes, Beaver refers to having attended church earlier on a Sunday or a lesson learned in Sunday School.After a difficult situation, Ward uses parables from the Bible to impart wisdom to the boys.He used Greek fables to teach the two of them about morality issues.
June and Ward are aware of their duty to impart traditional, but proven, middle-class family values to their boys.They serve as examples by using words and deed.Ward and June were models of conscientious parenting, but practiced more egalitarian parenting than other shows of the time.Ward supervises the behavior and moral education of his sons, usually with June's input, while June maintains a loving, nurturing home.While the series portrays the world through the eyes of a young boy, it sometimes dealt with controversial and adult subjects such as alcoholism and divorce.[4]
June provides crucial guidance to her sons while shielding them from outside influences with a matronly force of will.Eddie Haskell, who engages in impulsive, selfish, disruptive, and malevolent schemes, often needs her protection.Each day is a step closer to the twilight of the adults, which will lead to Eddie's ascension to neighborhood ruler.[45]
The quiet dignity of Ward is like that of a Solomon.He admits he committed a crime as a child and sometimes he punishes his sons for it.The peer-pressure the boys face when they want to see a horror movie with Eddie Haskell is something Ward relates to.Ward told June that he had a subscription to Weird Tales and saw hundreds of horror films as a boy.Sometimes Ward learns the most from something his sons or wife do.
The show uses a lot of contemporary kid-slang.Both of them use "gyp", "mess around" and "hunka" in relation to their food."grubby", "clobber" and "chicken" are frequently heard.Over the course of the show's run, the word "beef" was often used, meaning "disagreement", as in contemporary hip-hop.June and Ward did not approve."Sweat" is used to annoy his mother, she prefers "perspiration", and he is asked not to use the words "flip" or "ape".Anything that is outside the bounds of 1950s conformism is referred to as "Goofy"."Give me/you/her the business" was a phrase used to describe a character being sarcastic with another character."Flake off" or "Pipe Down" was used by friends to tell the Beaver to leave them alone."No foolin'?"It was often used as a way to say "really"?
Physical punishment is something that looms large in the imaginations of the boys.Both boys remind their father of past incidents when he did, even though Ward has never physically punished them.In one episode, he mentioned a time when he spilled ink on a rug and his father hit him.According to Ward, his father used a belt on him and Larry's homelife was described as one of being yelled at and hit.In one episode, Larry begged not to hit him.Don't hit me!His mother discovered he was reading his sister's diary.In the show, punishment is limited to being grounded, spending time in one's bedroom, losing movie-going or television privileges, or pulling weeds in the yard.[47]
On the show, June and Ward's'squeaky- clean' habits are compared to the 'grubby' ones of the other characters.Ward and June want their boys to wash their faces, hands, and fingernails before dinner, but both boys prefer being unwashed and dressed in dirty clothes.In the premiere episode, there was a fake bathing by rumpling towels and tossing "turtle dirt" in the bathtub.The scene is a study in irony.The boys run through their fake bathing routine in a way that suggests they have done it many times before.They are talking about a letter that his teacher sent home.He couldn't write a fake response to the teacher because it would be dishonest.He asked Beaver for some of his turtle dirt, which was found in his pocket.The dirt is thrown into the bathtub water and Wally says it will leave a ring.June and Ward compliment Wally on his neat appearance and chide Beaver for his unkempt appearance.Beaver moves into the guest room when he is called a "pig" because he can be his own dirty, messy self.He had to return to his old bedroom because of the shadows in the room.There is a middle ground between the two boys, with one of them being a bit tidier than the other.The final season shows signs of being neater, a sign of growing up.
Leave It to Beaver has an extraordinary number of bathroom scenes.The en-suite bathroom is where many scenes are set.The first episode, "Child Care", is almost entirely in the bathroom.Major scenes in the boys' bathroom are included in other episodes.The open bathroom door can be seen in almost every scene in the boys' bedroom.When his brother is angry, Beaver uses the bathroom several times to escape.June and Ward are called upon to order Beaver to leave his refuge.A scene is set in the bathroom of Ward and June.A person takes a bath in their tub and leaves wearing a suit and shoes.In the "Captain Jack" episode, a baby alligator is kept in the bathroom's toilet tank.
The comic contrast to his brother's successful dating life and his parents' happy marriage is provided by his attitude toward girls.He called Linda Dennison a "smelly old ape" and threatened to punch Judy Hensler if she did not stop drinking gutter water.In one episode, he says he's going to marry a mother when the time comes and he develops a crush on Miss Canfield and Miss Landers."Just because you're married doesn't mean you have to like girls," says Beaver.In the later seasons,Beaver has matured into a teen-ager, adjusted his outlook, and dates a few girls, though his dates are rarely as successful as Wally's.
The first season of Leave It To Beaver on CBS was canceled due to poor ratings.The ratings for the program were good enough for ABC to keep it on the air for five years.The show was at an impasse by the start of the 1962–63 season.At the end of the sixth year of acting in the series, Jerry Mathers wanted to go to high school.Leave It To Beaver ended its run on June 20, 1963.One of the first sitcom episodes written specifically for a series finale was "Family Scrapbook", which was directed by Hugh Beaumont.[3]
Performers from Leave It to Beaver appeared on Lassie.One of the pilots filmed for the series, "The Well", had yet to be filmed when Hugh Beaumont appeared as Ward Cleaver.In the first season of the series, the episode was filmed in color and aired in a straight line."Lassie and the 4-H Boys", an episode about two teen brothers quarreling over the disposition of a prize-winning bull, was filmed in 1968, while Tony Dow appeared with Jan-MichaelVincent as a hippie-type character.Stephen Talbot was featured in three episodes of "Lassie", "Growing Pains" and "The Big Race" in 1960."Tiger" Fafara appeared in one Lassie episode before they committed to Leave It to Beaver.In the 1960–61 season, Richard Correll played Steve Johnson, one of Timmy Martin's friends.Ken Osmond played a delivery boy in a season two episode and a smart-aleck kid in the season four episode "The Cub Scout".[63]
The main cast, except for Stanley Fafara, who was replaced as Whitey by Ed Begley, Jr., appeared in a reunion telemovie.The film followed adult Beaver's struggle to reconcile his recent divorce and single parenthood while facing the possibility of his widowed mother selling their childhood home.June Cleaver was elected to the council.
The New Leave It to Beaver was a made-for-cable TV series that was created after the enthusiastic reception to Still the Beaver.Eddie Haskell runs his own contracting business and has two sons; eldest son Freddie, who was every inch his father's son and a younger son, Eddie, Jr.
CBS and ABC had a scheduling problem with the show, airing it on four different nights in a row.[64]
The first broadcast of the show was on October 4, 1957, at 7:30 pm, opposite Saber of London on NBC and The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin on ABC.In March of 1958, the show was moved to Wednesdays on NBC.
The show was dropped by CBS.ABC ran it for five more seasons from October 2, 1958 to June 20, 1963.The move was made by the sponsor, who arranged a better deal with ABC than with CBS, according to Jerry Mathers' memoirs.[4]
The show had several time slots on ABC.It aired on Thursdays from October to June 1959 at 7:30 pm.The show aired on Saturdays from October 1959 to September 1962 and on Thursdays from 1962 to 1963.
After the ABC summer repeats, the series was syndicated in many cities.The show only aired in Atlanta, Georgia on Ted Turner's Channel 17 in the mid-1970s.Leave It To Beaver was exposed nationwide when WTCG went on satellite.The series gained new popularity in the 1980's.In Chicago, reruns were aired on a second-tier independent station.When subscription TV began to phase in in 1980, WGN-TV took over.Most large, major, and medium TV markets aired the show in the early 1980s.CBN aired it from 1981 until 1984.For many years in the late 1980s and into the 90s, it was shown on WGN and even briefly on Nick at Nite.TV Land aired it from 1998 to 2012NBC Universal Television owns all of the properties related to the series.
The show aired on Retro TV from 2006 to July 2011.The series ran on Antenna TV from October 3, 2011, to April 27, 2013, and then moved to MeTV on January 5, 2015, airing on weekday afternoons.It came back to MeTV on January 2nd.
The rights for all six seasons were acquired by the service.One year is how long the broadcast rights were for.The seasons were re-mastered.All of the seasons can be purchased through the Amazon Prime video on demand service.Peacock is a streaming service that carries all six seasons.
Novels, records, and board games were created for the juvenile market during the show's first run.Pinback buttons, clocks, greeting cards, calendars, non-fiction books about the show's production, memoirs, and other items were included in the merchandise produced for the adult babyboomer/nostalgia collector market.In 1983, Jerry and Tony appeared on boxes.A box of cereals sold for $300 at an auction in 2007.Copies of TV Guide and magazines from the period featuring articles about the show are all collectibles.Provenance is important when it comes to props and costumes from a show.
Leave It to Beaver was published by Little Golden Books during the series' run.Beverly Cleary published three softcover novels based on the series, Leave It to Beaver.Both of them, and Beaver and Wally.Leave It to Beaver: Fire! was printed by Whitman Publishing.Cole Fanin wrote a novel.The Beaver Papers were published in 1983.Atomic Drop Press published a 30th anniversary edition of the book in which twenty-five episodes were written in the style of Tennessee Williams, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner.
There were six Leave It to Beaver comic books published by Dell Comics.Four Color No. is the first comic book.The last color was Four Color No.May–July 1962In 2004, all six Dell Leave It to Beaver comic books were worth more than two hundred dollars.[68]
Three Leave It to Beaver board games were released in 1959.Two to four players play roll-and-move track games.There are three game box covers.
One of the show's recurring themes is the attempt to make money.The equipment has a center-seamed board with illustrations.A player distributes and collects money.
The game uses a rocket-shaped cone that is flipped onto a board to determine the number of spaces to be moved.There is a track game with an Old West theme.
Christopher McDonald played Ward in the 1997 movie adaptation of the series.Roger Ebert gave it a three-star rating, despite it being panned by many critics.It earned $11,713,605 at the box office.Some people made appearances in the film.
The first two seasons of Leave It to Beaver were released on DVD.The first season was available in two versions: an inexpensive cardboard slip-cased collection and a more expensive version in which the DVDs were contained in a retro-styled plastic photo album tucked inside a plaid metal lunch box.The DVD-18 format was problematic for many Universal Studios' boxed set releases.
Shout! was announced on January 26, 2010.The rights to the series were acquired by Factory.The remaining seasons were released on DVD and a complete series box set.69
On January 31, Shout!Leave It to Beaver: 20 Timeless Episodes is a best-of set.70